Values
by KKGlinka
Summary: Difficult compromises come in all forms.


Title: Values  
Characters: Selina Kyle, Bruce Wayne   
Continuity: Catwoman v.2 #53, OYL  
Note: Speculative reaction based on Batman #650, Catwoman #52 and OYL spoilers. Because I suspect the published version will involve more "oh woe, I are weak, irrational, inferior female who must be used to prop up morally superior man and be forgiven by him to regain self-worth." _Ew._  
Disclaimer: All characters © DC Comics.

* * *

"I can't let this go." 

"Mm." Selina had been waiting three days for Bruce to find her on the roofs. It had been five days since she held Holly, shaking under a film of gore from a brutal fight. She had listened to the younger woman explain haltingly about plans, schemes, strategy and how it took more than a hard fist to make a good Catwoman.

"I understand how in the heat of the moment -"

"I what? I slipped and couldn't help myself? I lost control? You forgive me?" Selina took measure of Batman, perched on the corner ledge. "I knew what I was doing. That sadistic bastard wasn't going to stop, change, repent or anything else. You know that."

"So you took the law into your own hands."

"Oh? You have a badge now?"

"I serve the law." His voice leaked impatience. He hated obtuse word games.

"I serve my friends." Black Mask would have executed them one by one, wallowing in their pain before they died, exploiting the numerous holes in the legal system afterward. She knew where all those gaps were, lived and breathed through them, understood how the psychopath would escape penalty.

"Then there's next time and the time after that, when you're pushed too far and backed in corner," he snarled. "Don't insult my intelligence. Not you."

"I've never asked for your approval." Nor his faith, because she doubted he could fathom someone who didn't slide fast once they crossed the line. He couldn't be that inconsistent.

"No, but you're not good enough to ignore it."

She shuttered her eyes. He had always fought her with an open fist, made the allowance and gone easy. He thought he had seen her fight. "I know you."

Though invisible behind protective lenses, she imagined his eyes narrowed as he calculated all the possible meanings of her parry. After a brief pause, he did not press, changing direction instead. "You need to stand trial."

"As far as the cops are concerned, he tripped over his own shoe-laces."

She had taken Black Mask's life as if it were a jewel in a vault, with misleading entry and clean escape. The cops all knew, of course, but in the end, no one had sympathy for the devil. No one looked too hard. Not when they had Detective Sam Bradley in a mechanized costume dead at the scene, his father in the ICU due to injuries caused by Black Mask, who had been playing the victim and pressing charges for trespass and assault.

Nevertheless, she'd gone low into hiding, expecting the inevitable blame. It was her life story, whether or not at fault. The retribution never came, except in Slam Bradley's silence and departure. Batman never smashed through a window or anything else, gone with so many of the other heroes. Not even the Question, who took residence in Gotham over the year, came knocking. By the time she realized no one knew or cared, life had changed.

Batman's head lowered as he recognized his own words from so many years ago. "You're right. I should never have let it slide the first time." His shoulders dropped as he went into full stance, a dark shape merging in and out of the wall.

"But you did, even though I'm not like you." She tracked his approach indirectly, resisting the urge to fall into her own defensive stance. "I can't put some rule ahead of people I care about. Without them..." She shrugged. "I have a... a family that counts on me to protect them. What they need comes before what I want."

"Looks to me like you got what you wanted." He paused. "You always did."

"Wanted? You know what I wanted? I wanted the fucking system to prove me wrong by working for a change, for that son of a bitch to fry, for the cops to win and I wanted to be... It doesn't matter." She flung her gaze to his feet, halting his nearly imperceptible advance, and centered herself. He wanted her angry, defensive, off-balance. He wanted her guilt. "I don't need to feel good about myself to know I did the right thing."

"So the ends justify the means?" His voice grated in carefully orchestrated menace. "Is that it?"

She tried to imagine shooting Holly to protect Black Mask's life, as if his had more value than all those he had destroyed, but the aberrant thought wouldn't form. Instead, her mind circled back to the night on the roof, watching a childhood ally fall in shock, Holly holding a gun, crying.

For all the bullets he'd taken, did he know how it felt to bow your head, get on your knees and take it, just to protect something dear? To accept that deeper injury that burned like an infection until you wanted to die and take everyone with you? Would he have understood why Holly had curled fetal around that gun as if she'd shot herself?

She watched him peripherally. His chin was high, shoulders back, legs straight. His demeanor vibrated with inviolate pride. There was no point in explaining to this otherwise rational man. Every night he battled the ones who had gone rotten inside with that disease, had never healed or gone immune once the grip passed. Perhaps he never saw otherwise, every night, he wrapped himself tight in layers of beautiful armor, zippered, clipped and buckled with fancy tumblers, like locks.

He was bandaged tightly, the scalloped cape wrapped like a tourniquet around a man covered by deformed scars. For a moment, her mind slipped to how ticklish he was along his ribs, the way his abs would twitch as he refused to laugh, but then snapped back like a whip. "Maybe. I guess I can always ask Jason."

Batman's cape flapped in the updraft, but his face bled into white. His mouth worked, a thin line of anger, before he responded, "He made his own choices. That didn't give me an excuse to take the easy way out."

"Of course not. You always do whatever it takes," she agreed pleasantly.

Everyone knew the story within weeks. Batman had put down one of his own, with a batarang to the throat, to protect the Joker. She found herself smiling vaguely. All those rules Bruce had, designed to protect the people he cared about, in that one instant, twisted by the letter, obliterating the spirit, hurting Jason for his own good. Wounding his family, that he had vowed to protect.

He was breathing hard and there was a soft, metallic jingle she associated with hand-cuffs from beneath his cape.

She didn't move a whisker. "Of course, it's crucial to aim at the right target, make sure you know who'll be paying the final price."

"That's low."

"It's a fact." Holly and Karon would, no doubt, manage without her, but it would only take a vicious freak to discover a connection between a feeble infant and Catwoman to overwhelm the young couple. That was her job. Theirs was to be the nice lesbian couple with the baby.

"I'm sure I can arrange a solution."

"But you won't be able to make me stop caring." She looked at the moon creeping higher and imagined Holly, fierce with skill she had practiced on the Alleytown kids. She needed to get home soon.

The soft jingle again, and Batman turned in profile. "I'll be keeping an eye on you," he warned, but a far different tone wormed its way through the words.

She checked the drop, looking down onto the Earth below, imagining another. She waited for him to reveal his true motive, when he could have easily found her so much sooner than now.

"Whose is it?" When she ignored him, he corrected, "She."

Selina passed an unfocused glance across the city sky-line. "Mine."


End file.
